The main concern is privacy not identity theft. See places like CASPIAN for examples of why identity linked databases for shopping tracking could be(and are being) horribly abused by these chains. The reason the finger print is even worse then the cards is that the finger print is linked directly to you and only you (barring forgery of finger prints of course) whereas with some cards you can put false or no information on signing up (although some require ID when signing up). If these fingerprints are correlated with any other database (IAO program anyone?) then suddenly anyone with access could know way more about you then you can imagine (think of the detectives that go through peoples trash to learn all kinds of neat things for an example of what I mean). The fact that your fingerprints are being linked to something as seemingly "irrelevant" as groceries is much worse then an ATM as it shows how pervasive we will allow this kind of tracking to be. Being paranoid doesn't make me wrong.
I take it you fail to understand, that bragging about understanding art doesn't make you look that smart. Especially since the parent of your reply didn't make any reference to anything other then the fact that the song was silent, regardless of its artistic components. I'm sure his silent song was some great magical artistic statement that's all so enlightening but it's still 4'33 of zero data. Hell i'm humming the song right now, I have the whole thing memorized!
I apologize if your post was supposed to be satirical in nature.
One problem with this plan that is often neglected is the fact that usually record companies money IS spent on doing the recording that you download which is part(albeit a small part) of the reason when a new album is pressed the artist usually starts out in debt to the record company and has to make decent profits via live shows to try and get above water.
Buying the album also helps to recoup those artists' costs. Now don't get me wrong, I think this scheme is horrible and maltreatment of artists and heavily exploits the artists especially since they also make the artists recoup all kinds of other bs costs like marketing and promotion(aka paying off radio stations to play their song).
As much as I would like to say that stealing the song and then paying the artist is a good idea, the current system doesn't support it very well at all and in reality the only way for it to really work is for the artists themselves to distribute/sell their own music.
Although I suppose the arguement could be made that as you said "The band can distribute the money as they see fit." they could pay back the record company with the money and keep whatever else they need it's still probably not enough without paying them the full normal song/cd/purchase price ratio.
Artists really need to get together and form a good system of self-distrobution/self-promotion that doesn't rely on a "pseudo-guild" that exploits them to get their stuff out there and make a living. mp3.com is in some respects a decent system but Universal is definetly taking it in directions that aren't supportive of the independants and instead mutating it slowly into a record label of its own.
As a matter of fact Sierra is making a brand new Space Quest game:)
As for remaking old FF games in updated graphics, I beleive I have heard that either they or some independant people might be doing that. Not sure though.
Ridiculous indeed.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Trademarks, copyrights and patents are so overabused that either we won't even be able to think without paying royalties or the whole thing will have to be torn apart and rebuilt because right now it's pretty much unsaveable. Thank you Mickey Mouse.
"Known Issues This is a 0.4 release. If you expect everything to work perfectly, you will surely be let down. This list covers some of the known problems with Phoenix 0.4. Please read this before reporting any new bugs to Bugzilla.
* Phoenix utilizes large hunks of Mozilla code. Many of the problems you may experience in Phoenix are actually problems in this Mozilla core code. If you find a problem with page content or connectivity then it is probably a Mozilla problem and should be reported to the Browser product in Bugzilla and not to the Phoenix product.
* Phoenix 0.4 does not work on Windows95. This is a problem with core Mozilla code and probably impacts all Mozilla-based products created after about Oct. 23rd. * Opening new location by pasting (middle-click) into rendering area is not working. * Site icons (favicons) are lost after crashes and are sometimes associated with the wrong bookmark. Clearing your cache (Tools|Preferences|Privacy) will clear your bookmark favicons so they can be redownloaded when next visiting that site. * If your menubar becomes inactive after toolbar customization then you probably didn't read the install notes and install your new build to a clean directory (and create a new profile for use with 0.4). * If pop-up whitelisting doesn't seem to work then you probably didn't read the install notes and create a new profile for use with Phoenix 0.4. * Talkback builds are not available for 0.4. * The sidebar will persist across new windows, but not across sessions (if you shut down with it open, it will be closed upon restart). * Quicksearch in bookmarks and history still have a couple of issues. We don't yet support deleting filtered results for bookmarks and history filtering is case sensitive. We expect to have these issues fixed in future releases. For additional issues, FAQs, Tips and Tricks plus general Phoenix help be sure to check out David Tenser's very cool Phoenix Help site and the mozillaZine Phoenix forums."
One can only assume that since it's in the Known Issues section that it's probably on their to-do list.
Perhaps people should publish that slacking guide and distribute copies of it to every employee at a target corporation you wish to disrupt. Of course the downside is that some of the managers may know what to look for when their employees utilize it. Boy would it be nice to suddenly have a huge group of a company start slacking and disrupt the hell out of it's business though.
Actually you're incorrect. There is a 3d interactive world that has been used by business and colleges (for a "virtual campus" and "virtual classes") called Active Worlds. http://www.activeworlds.com/
Actually I have heard directly from Apple employees that the latest versions of OS X have "increased intel compatability" aka they ARE at least trying to port it if they haven't done so successfully already. *crosses his fingers hoping OS X can come knock XP's crown off*
"Hell, your lucky you weren't alive during the microsoft conflict. We were beating each other to death with our own severed limbs." - line from the movie Jason X which takes place in 2455.
Mod parent up, productive posts like that are the proper response to this kind of threat. Especially considering a lot of commenters seem to be taking the word "DoS" at face value instead of reading the info.
Although I loathe the RIAA and everything they stand for, we are basically in the middle of an IP war. Although government intervention to protect corporate bottom lines is something I am vehemetly (sp) against, I have to say that the Rep. ideas do sound pretty reasonable considering coders and hackers constantly find new ways to block all the RIAA's pathetic attempts to stop file sharing.
Now I do agree that this kind of legislation will set a bad precendent because it gives corporations a "vigilante-ish" power that hopefully doesn't go any farther then this. We have to be careful in what kind of direction we let these laws go, but file-sharing networks have been using some pretty nice loopholes (like de-centralization) to somewhat stay out of courts (although seems like every week another network disapears). I have personally always wondered when corps. were going to start fighting fire with fire when it comes to the "warez" world. I'm suprised we haven't heard of cases of corp. "spy's" infiltrating warez organizations and such to bring them down from the inside, which is essentially what this legislation is basically suggesting they do to file sharing networks. In actuality this has probably happened at least once or twice given the morals of corps. but I guess if they were caught it wasn't leaked to the media, as I'm sure they would have a field day with the story.
Hopefully if this passes the RIAA can stop whining for a little while about being powerless to stop the piracy. However there is also the danger of this turning into something worse if they instead turn around and say, "See we tried to fight back but they are UNSTOPABLE, we need MORE laws like the CDBTPA(sp? hehe)!". It's not really this legislation that we should be afraid of considering as the parent points out, we can work around their games. It's the possible side-effects that are scary. I say we fight this legislation as much as possible, but instead of whining about it among each other, let's work on ways to fight back in case it does pass. Instead of whining, gear up because this war isn't even close to over. I'm already starting to see a shadowrunnish future developing here...
Slashdot Mirror
Just a note, there IS mcdonalds in Sims online...
Expect huge misspellings in 2003 as well. sorry I couldn't help myself.
The main concern is privacy not identity theft. See places like CASPIAN for examples of why identity linked databases for shopping tracking could be(and are being) horribly abused by these chains. The reason the finger print is even worse then the cards is that the finger print is linked directly to you and only you (barring forgery of finger prints of course) whereas with some cards you can put false or no information on signing up (although some require ID when signing up). If these fingerprints are correlated with any other database (IAO program anyone?) then suddenly anyone with access could know way more about you then you can imagine (think of the detectives that go through peoples trash to learn all kinds of neat things for an example of what I mean). The fact that your fingerprints are being linked to something as seemingly "irrelevant" as groceries is much worse then an ATM as it shows how pervasive we will allow this kind of tracking to be. Being paranoid doesn't make me wrong.
I take it you fail to understand, that bragging about understanding art doesn't make you look that smart. Especially since the parent of your reply didn't make any reference to anything other then the fact that the song was silent, regardless of its artistic components. I'm sure his silent song was some great magical artistic statement that's all so enlightening but it's still 4'33 of zero data. Hell i'm humming the song right now, I have the whole thing memorized! I apologize if your post was supposed to be satirical in nature.
One problem with this plan that is often neglected is the fact that usually record companies money IS spent on doing the recording that you download which is part(albeit a small part) of the reason when a new album is pressed the artist usually starts out in debt to the record company and has to make decent profits via live shows to try and get above water.
Buying the album also helps to recoup those artists' costs. Now don't get me wrong, I think this scheme is horrible and maltreatment of artists and heavily exploits the artists especially since they also make the artists recoup all kinds of other bs costs like marketing and promotion(aka paying off radio stations to play their song).
As much as I would like to say that stealing the song and then paying the artist is a good idea, the current system doesn't support it very well at all and in reality the only way for it to really work is for the artists themselves to distribute/sell their own music.
Although I suppose the arguement could be made that as you said "The band can distribute the money as they see fit." they could pay back the record company with the money and keep whatever else they need it's still probably not enough without paying them the full normal song/cd/purchase price ratio.
Artists really need to get together and form a good system of self-distrobution/self-promotion that doesn't rely on a "pseudo-guild" that exploits them to get their stuff out there and make a living. mp3.com is in some respects a decent system but Universal is definetly taking it in directions that aren't supportive of the independants and instead mutating it slowly into a record label of its own.
As a matter of fact Sierra is making a brand new Space Quest game :)
As for remaking old FF games in updated graphics, I beleive I have heard that either they or some independant people might be doing that. Not sure though.
666mb eh? so they get a cd full of "free" software in exchange for their...soul?
Ridiculous indeed. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Trademarks, copyrights and patents
are so overabused that either we won't even be able to think without paying royalties or the whole
thing will have to be torn apart and rebuilt because right now it's pretty much unsaveable.
Thank you Mickey Mouse.
Carmen Sandiego! But where in the world is she hmmm?
* Phoenix utilizes large hunks of Mozilla code. Many of the problems you may experience in Phoenix are actually problems in this Mozilla core code. If you find a problem with page content or connectivity then it is probably a Mozilla problem and should be reported to the Browser product in Bugzilla and not to the Phoenix product.
* Phoenix 0.4 does not work on Windows95. This is a problem with core Mozilla code and probably impacts all Mozilla-based products created after about Oct. 23rd.
* Opening new location by pasting (middle-click) into rendering area is not working.
* Site icons (favicons) are lost after crashes and are sometimes associated with the wrong bookmark. Clearing your cache (Tools|Preferences|Privacy) will clear your bookmark favicons so they can be redownloaded when next visiting that site.
* If your menubar becomes inactive after toolbar customization then you probably didn't read the install notes and install your new build to a clean directory (and create a new profile for use with 0.4).
* If pop-up whitelisting doesn't seem to work then you probably didn't read the install notes and create a new profile for use with Phoenix 0.4.
* Talkback builds are not available for 0.4.
* The sidebar will persist across new windows, but not across sessions (if you shut down with it open, it will be closed upon restart).
* Quicksearch in bookmarks and history still have a couple of issues. We don't yet support deleting filtered results for bookmarks and history filtering is case sensitive. We expect to have these issues fixed in future releases. For additional issues, FAQs, Tips and Tricks plus general Phoenix help be sure to check out David Tenser's very cool Phoenix Help site and the mozillaZine Phoenix forums."
One can only assume that since it's in the Known Issues section that it's probably on their to-do list.
Perhaps people should publish that slacking guide and distribute copies of it to every employee at a target corporation you wish to disrupt. Of course the downside is that some of the managers may know what to look for when their employees utilize it. Boy would it be nice to suddenly have a huge group of a company start slacking and disrupt the hell out of it's business though.
Actually you're incorrect. There is a 3d interactive world that has been used by business and colleges (for a "virtual campus" and "virtual classes") called Active Worlds.
http://www.activeworlds.com/
Actually I have heard directly from Apple employees that the latest versions of OS X have "increased intel compatability" aka they ARE at least trying to port it if they haven't done so successfully already. *crosses his fingers hoping OS X can come knock XP's crown off*
"Hell, your lucky you weren't alive during the microsoft conflict. We were beating each other to death with our own severed limbs." - line from the movie Jason X which takes place in 2455.
Mod parent up, productive posts like that are the proper response to this kind of threat. Especially considering a lot of commenters seem to be taking the word "DoS" at face value instead of reading the info.
Although I loathe the RIAA and everything they stand for, we are basically in the middle of an IP war. Although government intervention to protect corporate bottom lines is something I am vehemetly (sp) against, I have to say that the Rep. ideas do sound pretty reasonable considering coders and hackers constantly find new ways to block all the RIAA's pathetic attempts to stop file sharing.
Now I do agree that this kind of legislation will set a bad precendent because it gives corporations a "vigilante-ish" power that hopefully doesn't go any farther then this. We have to be careful in what kind of direction we let these laws go, but file-sharing networks have been using some pretty nice loopholes (like de-centralization) to somewhat stay out of courts (although seems like every week another network disapears). I have personally always wondered when corps. were going to start fighting fire with fire when it comes to the "warez" world. I'm suprised we haven't heard of cases of corp. "spy's" infiltrating warez organizations and such to bring them down from the inside, which is essentially what this legislation is basically suggesting they do to file sharing networks. In actuality this has probably happened at least once or twice given the morals of corps. but I guess if they were caught it wasn't leaked to the media, as I'm sure they would have a field day with the story.
Hopefully if this passes the RIAA can stop whining for a little while about being powerless to stop the piracy. However there is also the danger of this turning into something worse if they instead turn around and say, "See we tried to fight back but they are UNSTOPABLE, we need MORE laws like the CDBTPA(sp? hehe)!". It's not really this legislation that we should be afraid of considering as the parent points out, we can work around their games. It's the possible side-effects that are scary. I say we fight this legislation as much as possible, but instead of whining about it among each other, let's work on ways to fight back in case it does pass. Instead of whining, gear up because this war isn't even close to over. I'm already starting to see a shadowrunnish future developing here...
Hopefully the "hax0rz" use all their newfound wealth to buy the state of california a clue...